One of the nation’s most prolific buyers of office buildings is now a seller. Wells Real Estate Investment Trust has sold a four-story, Class-A office building in Tampa, Fla., for $31.2 million, or $240 per sq. ft. The deal includes 5.2 acres of adjacent land.

This is the first time that the Wells REIT has sold a property that it owned exclusively Wells bought the property in December 1998 for $21.2 million. The buyer is IPC Inc., a subsidiary of IPC US REIT in Toronto. The Tampa office of Carter, a full-service commercial real estate firm, assisted Wells in the deal.

"This represents a major sale from the Wells REIT portfolio, and we are pleased to have gone full-cycle on this property for the benefit of our investors," said Parker Hudson, managing director of dispositions at Wells Real Estate Funds. "We expect to redeploy the proceeds in another property acquisition in the near future, as we continue diversifying the Wells REIT portfolio by geographic location, by tenant type, by tenant industry, and by lease term."

The property contains 130,000 sq. ft. of space and is 100% leased to IBM and to the International Academy of Merchandising and Design (IAMD), a division of Career Education Corp. IAMD is expected to fully occupy the building in January 2005.